It has been a wonderful term, and we continue to be so grateful for the experiences we have been able to have in the classroom with our students. Congratulations, in particular, to our Preppies for completing their first term at school! We wish you all a wonderful holiday break, stay safe and well.

Celebration Picnic: Thank you to all our families who attended our first community event in a long time. It was wonderful to re-connect, the children had a ball during their Kaboom Carnival, and congratulations to all our busking performers. Many thanks to Paloma Ellis-Vega and the Prep and Grade 5 teaching team for supporting our Preps and Grade 5 buddies in their premiere performance as the BBPS Prep Choir.

Camp: Grade 5s and 6s have enjoyed a jam-packed week at Phillip Island Adventure Camp this week. According to all reports, highlights have included the Penguin Parade, surfing, the food and hanging out in cabins with friends. Many thanks to Kirsten Braun (Camp Coordinator) and the numerous staff who attended the camp and supported our children. Josh Ancrum ( Head of PE), Megan Craig (3C), Amy Chisholm (2C) Alison Coutts (1C) Patrick Porter (ES) Ruth Pascoe (ES) Jodie Gates and Jo Bingham (Year 5), Naomi Beales and Kirsten Braun ( Year 6) and Alex from Melbourne Uni.

NAPLAN Coordinated Practice Test: Grade 3 students participated in the state-wide Practice Test that provided the Victoria Curriculum Assessment Authority a test run to navigate and assess the capacities of our online testing systems in preparation for the national assessments in Writing, Reading, Language Conventions and Mathematics ready for Week 4. Overall, the CPT was a success with 84% of Victorian schools participating. Nationally, 4,213 schools participated with 429,417 students logging in during the event. No individual student results are provided for this assessment – the focus was on assessing technology capability. Grade 5 will have the opportunity to also practice early next term. The official testing period dates will be confirmed via the Compass Calendar. Information has already been shared with families in grades 3 and 5 in the form of a handout.

Staffing and Professional Practice Days

You may have noticed over the past two weeks, as the term has drawn to a close, that all teaching teams have met for the day as an opportunity to collate data sets, monitor learning progress and plan the learning sequences for next term. This routine has been in place for a number of years across the Victorian state and ensures we continue to deliver engaging and challenging learning experiences for your children. Academic emphasis, a collective focus on student learning and teacher collaboration support our professional learning culture. Whenever these Professional Practice Days take place, and on occasions when your classroom teacher might have other responsibilities beyond the classroom (such as camp; leadership; professional development), we endeavour to allocate familiar replacement teachers in our classrooms.

We are very fortunate to have a number of outstanding staff members that support this process, we thank Sue Curtis and Jo Bingham as our very dedicated regulars and who we consider as part of the BBPS Teaching team. We are also grateful that Claire Paitaridis (PrepOP) and Linda McCaffrey (PE) are super flexible and able to increase their part time availability when necessary. We thank them for taking over in Year 5 while Shanti has been on extended and remains on leave. We welcome back Mrs Kylie White after the birth of her daughter Aubrey, a little sister for Zachary. Kylie is returning to take up her full time position and will be taking over in Year 5 for the remainder of the year. She has been back for the last three weeks of term in preparation and has been involved in the year 5 and 6 team planning for Term 2.

Easter Raffle: Today’s Easter Raffle lived up to the annual expectations of all our students, with a sighting of the Easter Bunny and many happy recipients of the most wonderful prizes across Prep to Grade 6. Held this morning on the Exon Playground to ensure social distancing practices could be maintained, we were in absolute awe of the generosity of our families in providing Easter delights for this event. Thank you to all those who donated and purchased tickets – the money raised will go towards purchasing new furniture for our library. Special thanks must go to the Prep Parent Team, led by Bec Arcuri and Talo Perna (aka EB), for the many hours of preparation and organisation. We are very lucky to have such a hard working Parent Association contributing to the positive culture at BBPS and the broader community ( see Easter hamper deliveries) and we thank them all.

Student leadership - Thank you Year 4

With our year 5 and 6 away at camp, year 4 students stepped up as representatives of the school. Lottie and Belle were fine ambassadors during the Tuesday School Tours. They confidently shared their knowledge of the learning programs, facilities and routines of the school to prospective parents looking to enroll their children at BBPS for 2021.

Assembly

Another fantastic display of leadership occurred when Harry, Mattheus, Lizzie and Maddie from 4B led this week’s assembly and even managed a very mischievous Easter Bunny.

BBPS Community Easter Hampers

Finally 4M’s SRC reps, Holly and Flynn, had their first formal role when they went to Hamble Court Nursing Home to deliver our annual Easter hamper to the lovely residents. This relationship has been built up over a number of years now through the Year 6 community projects. This delivery coincided with a visit by the state parliamentary minister for Brighton, James Newbury. A second hamper was taken to the federal member of Parliament, Tim Wilson who delivered it to Fairway Bayside Aged Care, Sandringham.

Community Radio is back and our media captains have been wowing listeners with their developing expertise. Gabriel, Georgia, Ivy and Leni, along with Amy Chisholm, brave the early morning starts to present the BBPS news and entertainment segment on Southern FM. Stay tuned next term.

Also next term, stay tuned for more information from our school leaders from year 6 as they commence their Action Projects and Blog launch. Students are in the process of considering the needs of our community and putting some plans into action. This includes junior lunch time clubs (including capitalising on the current interests in board games such as chess); the facilitation of junior gross motor programs; gardening projects and coding workshops. Congratulations to our students for their innovation and drive thus far.

Library Renovations: It looks like we are finally here, library refurbishments are due to start over the school holidays. Funded by PA locally raised funds, with the help of a Local Schools Community Fund Grant received last year, we look forward to sharing this new community space with you all. At this stage, building works are due to continue into the start of term 3. During this time Their Care will operate out of our STEAM Room for Administration and Sign in, entry via the gallery that leads to the school hall. TheirCare students will have full use of the school hall.

Term 2: School returns on Monday, 19th April. Staggered start and finish times to remain.

Have a lovely break!

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